WOW! Business to extend fiber network to 500 wireless towers in Chicago

WOW! Business continues to enhance its wireless backhaul holdings, announcing that it has been selected to provide fiber-based services to over 500 towers for various wireless operators in the Chicago metro area.

While it did not reveal the identity of its customers, WOW's wholesale division will build over 50 contiguous fiber rings connecting the cell tower base stations to mobile switching centers (MSC) that link to the global Internet backbone and the local PSTN network.

It expects the first sites to be operational in the fourth quarter this year, with the total project slated to be completed by 2017.

Chicago has been a key growth target for WOW! Business' wholesale division. In early April, the service provider rolled out its Ethernet and session initiation protocol (SIP) trunking services in Chicago. Later that month, the service provider installed fiber connections to City Hall, the fire department and public works building in Oak Forest, Ill.

Similar to its larger cable operator brothers Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA), Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC) and Cox, WOW! has been aggressively chasing the wireless backhaul opportunity. This effort is supported by a sizeable network that includes 42,000 miles of local fiber and coax networks in 19 U.S. markets.

For more:
- see the release

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